


Keithtober & Whumptober 2018 Prompts

by starcrossed_writer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Keith (Voltron)-centric, kwmonth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-23 15:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16161860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starcrossed_writer/pseuds/starcrossed_writer
Summary: A collection of prompts for the Keithtober & Whumptober, a combination event.1.) Keith ruminates on his near-suicide after the battle of Naxzela.2.) Keith's inner thoughts during his Trial at the Blade of Marmora headquarters.3.) How Keith in the split of a second became an orphan, all due to what he is the protector of.4.) What the Galaxy Garrison means for a kid like Keith.





	1. Naxzela (Imploding Aftermath)

Keith's soul could be compared to that of a thin glass shard, stuttering and shredding through the reflecting reality of what he's just done.

It crashes fast, then the individual pieces scatter along with the understanding of the throbbing ache curling in his chest.

The feeling is ugly, raw in the way it guts his head as he curls up in the pilot seat—grasping his temples and squeezing. Like the mere simple action of that can cure the aftershocks rippling his entire being in one simple painstaking cut.

A crude slash brings his skull rattling down to hide in-between his knees, the dark truth curling in his body—he's not residing in the Galra cruiser at that singular moment.

Keith twists his fingers in his hair, breath dwindling into utter wild territorial danger. Like hurricane winds tearing off the roof of a fundamental hold of grounded surrealism, built up so carefully only to get brushed apart like a stack of cards.

The deck gets shuffled.

Keith's bones feel like lead.

He's seven, tears streaking immoral against his own wishes as he screeches bloody murder for his father to emerge from the building. Flames engulf the entire structure, lapping up the air provided and fueling the crisp smell of burning.

He's eight, getting that cruel reassurance on Father's Day when everyone else in his class does cards to show their appreciation for them. The unbridled settlement of no parents conducts a cacophony of issues, the teacher escorting him out when he breaks down crying (thus disrupting the class).

He's nine, cold and aloof to foster home number four in the span of two years with a drunken father with no warmth—icicles exist in its place, dull contentment churning his anger. No control over the matter at hand.

He's ten, running away from bullies who use parents as an outlet for dastardly teasing. A way to strike an arrow of shadowed doubt of being unwanted, how nobody will adopt him now that he's double-digit age.

He's eleven, secluded inside the room of foster home number twelve with a black eye huddling the one good thing he has gotten in years by the kind mother—a sketchbook to do art in—protectively to himself. Briefly there's a flicker of a wavering thought innocently capturing what a mother is defined as, instead of the splatter of stars his father pointed towards.

He's twelve, situated at the back of the classroom spaced out while Takashi Shirogane talks of the Galaxy Garrison. When he steals his car and is subsequently, for the first time in his short lifespan, shown a second chance. When he is provided opportunities and a friendship he's never experienced.

He's thirteen, learning of Shiro's condition. The fear gathering and collapsing his breath as he instinctually internalized the panic rising of Shiro being taken  _away_  from him. He lost his father; he can't handle losing his brother just so the universe can say checkmate on the string of cruel coincidences so feasted upon for discord.

He's the blurred haze of ages fourteen to now being almost eighteen, past the Kerberos mission initiative and deluded failure. Past him becoming the Paladin of the Red Lion. Becoming a defender of the universe. Becoming someone worth it in the world.

Teetering off to becoming a Blade of Marmora. Becoming a simple pawn in the laid out board of war. Becoming a being that's unimportant, discarded, and replaced.

Becoming the broken wall of brick lathered on with old cement giving away to truthful chaos wrapped in the perfection of mannerisms. The wall shaking and crumbling, defensive and prickly like a newborn cactus refining the thorns with each new development.

Explosions collide behind Keith's eyelids, moisture fogging up his sight and general awareness. He can still feel the heat of how close he was, the burning brushing crudely at his fingertips until he tightens his grip on the ship's handles.

Fire lapping at his senses, the flashback colliding to utter paralysis.

Keith guesses he responded to a voice over the comms, mechanically distant (but somehow steady enough to pass as acceptably fine). For once, he doesn't take notice of any fluctuations in his tone—his ears are clogged from his position. Hiding away from the dispelled effects of what he so nearly did without a moment's thought.

_He almost died._

_He almost died and the others don't know._

_He almost died and he was congratulated; if he had hit the shield it would fall on a corpse reverberating the speech via the confines of the ship's metal material._

_He almost died...and it was all his fault._

Blood curls sharply, a body bag of adrenaline counseling inner demons choking.

He's that kid again, small with trails of egoistic virtues fed of heroes like his father.

Heroes who die in the line of fire; fate just dominated his choices without outward influential factors.

He's that kid again, quietly choking as tears streak down his face; they warm his cheeks, the choking noises accompanied by sniffling adding a foreboding aura of loneliness.

He's that kid again, only able to process the world through a lens of blind trust in himself. Able to deduce that comfort is not primary, it is secondary.

_Did he or did he not gain allowance for a hug, if nobody is informed to prompt one?_

The soft lights given off by the ambient fighter jet is limited. There is no deliverance from the tsunami washing over him, culminating fear disgusting his sense of purpose. Skewing his mind with a sharp punch to his jawbone from how much it's locked in place.

Kolivan is responding with a mediator-level standard, voice assuming strictness yet understanding wrapped up in a neat bouquet of wilted experience.

Worn but familiar, snapping Keith out of the subconscious he has supported himself on like a raft in the middle of a vast ocean.

With depleted energy Keith suffocates the rubber of the controls, sobbing suppressed in the form of a lip bitten near raw, the face schooling into that of a dull acceptance (intense pale, ashen remains of a fake hero).

He has a duty as a Blade to carry out, time that needs to resume passage as if normalcy was ever a standard, a position not needed but wanted to be filled.

The next time he comes to be with the others in the safety of the castle-ship, none of the other Paladins (his found family, comrades,  _friends)_  cares to ask about the event of Naxzela.

The next time he's alone, nightmares of his near-kamikaze occur as a reminder of if it was just a second later instead. Resulting in traumatic injury with no outright aid, or sudden pinpricks over skin followed by numbness.

When greed corners him for cowering, he is devoured by the forsaken lightning bolts of shivering glass pieces he felt arise once more. Infecting his heart into somewhat of a nasty caricature.

It is what he deserves in reward, to pass through it like a ghost onto his next mission.

Phantom wisps of trust disperse around him, the frightening amount of care he internally desired scratched away. Another system of falsely accused security with self-esteem pummeled to collect grime.

Keith will never measure up to be half the vigilante his father portrayed, the battle raging on despite the lone urge that someone may care blanketing him crudely as a safeguard.

Just for a singular moment, to prove.

Prove he is worth more than a suicide attempt stemmed from the mantra _the mission is more important than the individual_ so repetitively drilled into his skull.

Keith guides the fighter into a normal route, palms sweaty and body shaking with unprocessed adrenaline.

Eventually his heart rate will level out once more. The despairing shock will leave in vargas to come. He'll be deposited in the aftermath.

Although he is negative anybody but perhaps Matt is aware of the grave influx of his full-fledged attention, bearing down the glowing near-suicide intended to be shied away from to the team it will not be prioritized.

He will not be prioritized.

Things will go back to normal, in the grand scheme of battle-wrought activity.

Keith learns to be fine with that, despite the chasm-wide ache taking up a new residence.


	2. Blade Of Marmora (Courage To Exist)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's inner thoughts during his Trial at the Blade of Marmora headquarters.

Keith's muscles ache.

Similar to running a marathon against one's will, the body screaming at them to resist pulling the strain out any longer. Continuing will only make it snap and crumble apart like a tiny rubber band.

The pressure on one simple item used to wrap things up, held together by the mere thin fragmentation the band itself persists of. It does not fairly exist to be the source of edged-on abuse.

The components will wear and depress, burning white-hot at its main breaking point until it tips over in a large snap that reverberates one's fingers.

Two points will disconnect from the source, a chain reaction of equal measures forced down on them to absorb it. Or maybe one-half, the weakest link in the whole apparatus.

A rubber band is not strong, it is unwieldy. Flicking it at the skin causes the stinging sensation, but give it distance and it creates only a mere touch on the surface. A distracting brush, meaningless enough to only be spared a glance.

A rubber band serves as a vicious roundabout, a turntable of stretching opportunities chased. The marathon running fathoms the speed at which it will hiss the final crackling strike—one last rebounding echo down an empty hallway.

The muscles of his body pulse not unlike its predecessor companion, intertwining in similarity as to what it will take to have them; actively curse both to utterly yield in a field of decimated truths on the grounds gardening away from lies.

His surroundings blur like a flickering lightbulb shining overhead. Beads of sweat crowd the area of his sacred temple, alighted fresh from the dripping of blood beating like death on his brain's front door. Breaths come out labored as his eyes blink at paces known for lesser speeds, once every sound a printer makes to create a paper ( _ch ch  ch, stop...ch, ch, ch..._).

That jumpscare when it pauses allows for a hitch in his breath from his placement on the cold ground. He can feel the temperature through the garment he had to wear for this Trial of Marmora against his back—the glowing never abates its hovering from within its selective placements, a reminder.

Glaringly reflective colors pose on the polished-by-practice floor. Capturing the attention of his eye turning to wonder the spectacle in the corner of it; that minuscule gaze with his tired lids make the light waver.

Spots intrude his vision. It's quick and opulent, dark blotches like the fur of a Dalmatian skewing through the hazy recollection.

Shiro's looking down at him now, face so concerned with a soft devil-may-care sympathy pulsing through his entire motions. He flicks his eyes up to take in the paleness of Shiro's face; his pallor isn't supposed to appear like that. Keith's a bit more fair-skinned compared to his older brother, but he's heavily sure that Shiro has had his sapped away just by gazing at his limp form.

He must look off-putting, his right shoulder wound from the Marmora operative he earned from them slicing through the suit then subsequent skin startlingly red.

Keith is having trouble even tracking his gaze towards the wound, vividly picturing that from the deftness of his scream which reverberated through the room it was gaping wide. Pain was rippling like tidal waves, sweeping Keith under each time he gave a vague action with the arm.

Blood drips in a constant onto the unblemished clean floor of the Blade of Marmora base, an unknown hallway he had squeezed himself through to go onwards past another door.

It's a minimal pool of crimson lead, gathering near his body as Shiro parks into the gas station of now—pulling Keith up and gently guiding his capable arm around so that Keith's incapacitated other can hang limply on his neck.

"'Kashi?" He is able to garble out (and even then the name is difficult to choke up from his vocal chords, coming as a whisper), throat raw from the screaming to  _fight, fight, fight_  and  _breathe, breathe, breathe_.

Keith's ears pop from the generalized momentum, and Shiro is saying something reassuring into them no doubt. There is a negative on a substitute for what he said, the canals of his auditory system so electrocuted with noise that near nothing can dare to process well.

For a while he zones out, experiencing a coma event where he is inhabiting his being but in itself he's transversed into territory that is disastrous to break apart from. A planet getting pulled into a black hole, theoretically shown on movie screens but no scientifically subversive proof used to refute such a case.

His weight changes when Shiro lashes out at the Blade leader. For what exactly, he's not sure; Keith asked for a mental and physical challenge, the mantra  _knowledge or death_  being what drove him to figure out his knife's origins.

Kolivan yells something about how the knife doesn't belong to him, to give it up. His mind, unwound as it is, pieces together that the meaning is unknown when he says he failed to awaken it.

He announces that, words slurred as he closes his eyes from the dirt (briefly he hears the shaking, his heartbeat flashing higher range when Red roars—lava pouring over his body to warm him everywhere, encasing like a thick blanket of angry protectiveness that surges).

Keith will never give up the blade; it's always been his. Dad said so, and he has never been wrong before.

The Trial itself was heavily strenuous. He was not sure if he could stop, no matter his deep-rooted want to embedded like a rusty gemstone in a ring of desires.

Deep down, he wasn't sure he  _wanted_  to stop. Seeing his father's face after years of blazing nightmares spent, so vibrant and real, made him waver. Gave him a moment of pause, of reevaluation.

If he had stayed longer, perhaps he would have been killed—Keith's brain only throbbed from the ache of the reunion (his father  _alive_ ,  _talking_ ). His condition would have only gotten worse until death took its toll.

Keith barely holds himself up, the stance he has the ability to procure is easily unguarded. His knees are bent, trembling under his weight.

The shoulder is turned away from the danger signs going off in his head of where the source is. It is already a divot swiped harshly in blood, staining the suit. There is no simple doubt in Keith's mind that he will make it to a pod too late for a scar not to be present.

Shiro is fighting with Kolivan, and the broad-shouldered Galra—Antok, is his name, the 't' pronounced sharp and bolstered—with his hand to their swords, staring at each other with intent malice.

Thrusting out the knife, he chokes out with dialect forced to just take it. He doesn't want to fight, as it has been sapped from his primary will.

Lying through his teeth to break up the dispute, he accuses himself of knowing who he is. Where he comes from.

Despite his father warning of his mother being there soon to offer an explanation.

They all need to join forces and aid each other together in this war against Zarkon, not be poised at each other's throats like cobras waiting for their prey to give an edge.

He doesn't need to be the cause.

Keith feels the weapon expand and increase, shutting his eyes from the light as it seems to transform under his fingertips.

"You've awoken the blade."

Kolivan's voice filters through, with awe he is not certain of being there.

He stands there, battered with bruises coating him and a shoulder sliced open.

A beat passes where he freezes, the instinctual fear clenching his conscious at the fact stated after the initial shock disperses.

_ The only way this is possible is if Galra blood runs through your veins. _

Incrementally he shakes at the news. It's subtle enough to be unnoticed.

Shiro's face is steel, if not perhaps in understandable shock—Keith spares it a happening glance, how his brow is arched in thought and his actions are conjoined in the revelation.

Through the trap of a migraine, he resolves to avoid looking at Shiro.

The entire way back with Blade of Marmora leader in tow (after calling off his lion) with Red's fast tactics and balming presence on how his breath is hitching and the processing is labored.

_ He's Galra. _

_ He's Galra. _

_ He's Galra. _

It's drastically quiet. Not the silence Keith thrives in; this is awkward and with no conversation to at least chase some peace that isn't there.

Informing the others in a state of frenzied blood loss takes the cake with the situation.

Coming out of the pod later, he feels the rejection like a slap to the face when nobody catches him.

Everybody had limited responses to his bloodline announcement.

Allura is cold.

Coran is indifferent.

Hunk is joking.

Lance is quiet.

Pidge is curious.

Shiro...is distant. Yet caring.

Tracing his new scar in the mirror is a grim reminder of what's to come; trust must be reformed like building blocks to a fallen structure toppled over in the details.

_Give them time._

_Give them space._

That is all Keith can do to not rupture the semblance of a family he has come to known.  
  



	3. Orphan (Wants Versus Needs)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Keith in the split of a second became an orphan, all due to what he is the protector of.

Keith is a kid nobody wants.

He acknowledges it each time he's put in a new foster home, his expectations smudged away like an eraser to a whiteboard. It's a solid pressing matter how he clams up and refuses to get close: he's been labeled on so many accounts it has become a reminder that he may as well fit those labels.

Passing through life is just a series of being marked unimportant. He's only desired since he has a price tag that is cashed in for profit going towards being able to clothe, feed, and have other general equities of his own. Foster kids like him are only a loan, a bond that stacks up with interest until he closes and is passed along for other investments.

Family is an unfamiliar term he hasn't been privy to since he was seven and his father let him stay up past his bedtime to watch the meteor shower one night. Family is using his dad's telescope to view the stars out in the desert away from city air pollution, on top of the roof - tranquil with introspection as each one was given an explanation to with a point of a finger, a strong arm curled around his midsection so he's safe in Dad's arms.

Keith used to think nothing could get him when he was guarded by those arms - the nightmares were chased away, his meltdowns were quelled, worries were suffocated. As long as those arms existed to keep him in place maybe believing wasn't so bad to do.

Then the  _fire_ took him away.

The arms were wrapped around him desperately one last time, squeezing him solid and strong. Lifting him out of the overbearing warmth to safe bearings, but Keith could only clutch his stuffed hippo so strong in his arms.

The new belt gifted to him a week ago weighed down on his hips, the knife nursed in tight bandages and planted in the holster just like he was taught. Keep it hidden, keep it close.

Yelling from around the building sounded out from other arms, grabbing at him as Keith reached longingly for more. His comfort was being ripped away, his heart shriveling despite the ashes he was covered in. Despite the way his breathing grew labored from his tears he did not stop shouting over the noise for his dad to just  _come back_.

There were screams for help in the background he had forcefully tuned out earlier on that his dad devoted his attention towards then, shrill and alert as ever in his job. It's those characteristics that made him a hero in Keith's imagination - a fantasy of courageous acts in the glaring face of danger. Conquering the big bad inferno with a mighty roar of a hose, a stomp of a boot.

Keith was handed over and he wriggled, until his dad came into view - for a moment everything came to a momentary stand-still. His dad ruffled his hair, and Keith could feel his heavy mint-scented breath fanning on his face from how heavy each exhale came out as.

"I love you, Keith, okay? Don't you ever forget that. Ever." His voice was rough, like it had been grated in consistency then spat out like the cigarette butts Dad hated spotting on the ground.

At that, Keith was confused but gave a jerking nod. He didn't know what was happening, since at this age he was too young to understand the urgency what that signified. In his innocent mindset he became under the general assumption that Dad was coming back. He would be there and curl up with him on the sofa, Keith scrambling to hide his constellation drawing he's been working on so painstakingly.

The house would still be standing, and this family would still be as whole as he remembered it.

The  _fire_ took everything away, like it always does.

He just happens to be the Guardian of Fire as the Red Paladin; Keith couldn't stand the heavy irony in that statement whenever he dwells so much for a couple ticks on the glaring truth.

Blazing intents of burning left him in the wake of it an orphan, sobbing alone in the hospital room while they treated his burn wounds and choked forth empty condolences he had tuned out.

His tears singed the pain to increase in volume, the gravity of being told his father is dead bringing him six feet under with such inane influence to be right there and see him again. See his warm smile when Keith showed him a new doodle he was proud of, hear his guffaw each time Keith dressed in his firefighter uniform to act like him, and feel the stubble and scar Keith loved leaning against on sleepless times.

Now he is no one important, but an orphan. No parents, and no home.

An orphan alone at recess, secluded and uncooperative to earn him that first label of "troubled".

An orphan not being able to take part in Mother's or Father's day.

For Voltron, maybe he can be a kid they will need.


	4. Garrison (Glittering Opportunities)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What the Galaxy Garrison means for a kid like Keith.

The uniform he wears is itchy. A texture that he's just completely not used to against his skin, mandatory to do so in that respect.

Shiro got him into the Galaxy Garrison, and it had seemed such a heady prospect at the time. Keith thought the rules here were even stricter than the foster homes he had been placed in before; the juvenile detention center had nothing on the militant similarities this facility entails.

Fundamentally sound was the way he caught his name almost everywhere whenever he walked down the hallways. Eyes followed him behind his back and glued themselves to that place.

He's just Shirogane's little brat to them. It's what they'd all say (either mentally or audibly), just because the guy has given him more hearty notice in the flight simulators. More patented advice in general, since that second chance he had been offered.

Keith didn't even know the guy, and he didn't know Keith in return. The trust was torqued to seem stable as much as it was not tamed. It was still in development, that much was obvious in the way his shoulders hunched when the older man was around.

Over the years that have passed, Keith had been taught to absorb one rule—adults are not to be easily depended on for basic needs; he was there to exist then move on. Nothing in his life is ever proven to be exponentially safe, so his guard must only be built like a fortified brick wall.

Walls were sturdy, especially with how they offer prospects of protection. Barring himself before things crumbled into worse situations was how Keith came to get acquainted with life in general. It is better to be vigilant than complacent in the idealistic structural encompassing ways of a society's listless norms.

The Galaxy Garrison itself was humongous, winding halls and intense faculty made it difficult for Keith to even dare utilize any attempts at rebelling.

He did have the deeply rooted desire to be here, but there were sights set on him all the time. They were breathing down his neck each time he got into a dispute with Griffin or somebody else, reminding him that despite his scores he's only enrolled here in this program thanks to Shiro.

While it is true that he was the reason Keith was even inhabiting the dorms here were compiled from that fact, it's almost as if they took such gleeful pleasure in watching him have to be paranoid of each dispute.

 _Any_  of these spats he intervened in that could send him down the spiral, sliding down back to the group home.

Expectations were prevailing, the bar set so high due to the act of that vouch procured for him. Without that vouch, there was no reasoning for his presence; he wasn't desired without Takashi Shirogane's approval.

Kids in his class made it their mission to watch him screw up; he didn't mean to appear cocky about being a sensational pilot.

The only gathered information he had been through were lessons taught in class on a board about flight statistics and data that was precise.

Things such as wingspan and its impact on how the vessel flew, burned in his mind.

Scientifically raw research was never Keith's exact area of expertise, but considering the only dividend he had to factor in from was that video game simulator his odds were sharp.

_I can outfly anyone in this building._

Keith could feel the breathing of the superiors on his back, scalding the thin ice he was balancing himself on in a sea that, if he falls in, hypothermia resides in the murky deep.

He never appreciated being held so closely like a project, this nuclear war bomb set to detonate seemingly when he fumed up at something that could be thrown off course of worry by precarious behavior.

Keith was nothing but a cadet tripping on thin invisible wire, set up for failure. All he will ever mount up to is not the next young space explorer, but an orphan nobody set up to graduate from nothing sought after—only to be shoved into a monotonous life built for suicidal job applications.

Who was he even kidding, he belonged a stranger. Forgotten in the system, left behind like his mother did to him; die like his father did in the licking flash fire.

Whenever he wasn't alone, it was with a set of rules.

Behave this way, or no dinner.

Pretend you are not a freak, rinse and repeat hiding in your assigned room.

Smuggle food so that next time the punishment comes, you can keep up stamina—do not get caught or consequences are harsher. Food is hard to preserve, find things that don't go stale.

Keep close to what you know.

This process was a clean-cut one he followed as if a sacred regimen. Keith kept his head down away from others, barring them out of any emotional connection they struggle capturing on him; his flight team gets upset with him, asking to switch to another. It's a near constancy that ticks along like a clock, never ending complaints that he's weird.

He's uncooperative, standoffish - but it isn't like they plan on getting rid of the kid who slowly surpasses his peers to the top of the board in leading scores. Who flies with a roaring passion, as if trying to escape the atmosphere he's trapped in—desiring the oxygen to distort the reality details of surrounding static screaming in his brain that he is _nothing_.

At least, not anytime soon.

Shiro slowly worms himself in through his comforts to Keith, and miraculously in the years since Keith has known anybody of all backgrounds (with different lures and tricks) his walls lie low. They start talking, and he comes out of the hard-polished shell he's hidden in for so long from the elements of deceit.

Keith's taught that he doesn't have to hide food among other things ingrained within his instincts, and Shiro's taught that being Keith entails so much more than ordinary detainment-problems of a young teenager.

They make their dynamic work, slowly but surely.

Keith alights with the knowledge that while the Garrison might be tough, he has a brother by his side to guide him through—one tepid step at a time.


End file.
